Fig. 5

Effect of dNTP pool imbalances on HIV-1 mutant rate in macrophages. The HIV-1 mutant frequency was determined in human primary macrophages by using the pMIG HIV-1 vector based system as previously described [29, 30]. After transducing 4-h dN treated macrophages with pMIG HIV-1 vector, mutant frequency analysis was conducted by FACS. Mutant frequency was determined based on the percentage of mCherry and EGFP single positive cells, compared to the total number of infected cells. The equation used was (mCherry⁺EGFP⁻ cells + mCherry⁻EGFP⁺ cells) divided by total infected cells. The calculated mutant frequency in each treatment was normalized with the mutant frequency of the untreated macrophages (NT). The data are the mean of three independent experiments and error bars represent the standard deviation from the mean. *p-value < 0.05, **p-value < 0.01